School Grant Spotlight

Applications for the McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation's Academic Enrichment Grants are now being accepted, and the deadline is just a month away. The foundation provides grants of $10,000 per year for up to three years ($30,000 total) for educators who have workable ideas for improving student learning, either by supplementing classroom curriculum or by engaging students in after-school activities.

So far, of the 350 available slots for applications, only 76 have been filled. (The submission period ends when when 350 applications are received.)

According to the organization, "The Academic Enrichment Grants provide funding for programs that nurture the intellectual, artistic and creative abilities of children from low-income households." The foundation offered these three guidelines for applicants:

• Applicants should have a unique idea for a project that will "supplement your regular classroom curriculum or after-school activity,"

• Applicants' students should "have ideas for enrichment activities or a need for strengthening their academic experiences"; and

• Applicants should have "facilities, expertise and community endorsement" but be in need of additional funding.

In past years, two to five applicants received grants under the Academic Enrichment program.

K-12 Grant & Award News

For the sixth (and final) year in a row Google is running its Google Lunar XPRIZE, an online competition that challenges students ages 8 to 17 to form a team of two to four members and design, create and program robots.

An Indiana non-profit dedicated to elevating postsecondary education outcomes has put up $50,000 to elicit the best ideas for boosting the number of people who earn post-secondary credentials out of high school.

Amazon and Reading is Fundamental (RIF), one of the nation's largest literacy organizations, have partnered to empower Amazon customers to provide books to children who may have limited or no access to books in their homes.

Collabera, a New Jersey-based IT staffing and professional services company, is supporting STEM students with its 2017 Collabera STEM Scholarship. The scholarship will grant $2,500 scholarships to three individuals to assist in their efforts toward pursuing STEM careers.

FIRST, an international nonprofit organization founded to inspire youth to participate in science and technology, has hit a milestone achievement of $50 million for its scholarship program for high school and college students interested in STEM.

Sponsor: SparkFun
Award: STEM/STEAM-releated prize packages, event and team sponsorships and other types of support
Number of Awards: Varies
Application Deadline: Third Thursday of each month; awards announced on the last business day of each month

Sponsor: Crayola and the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP)
Award: $2,500 plus $1,000 in Crayola gear
Number of Awards: Up to 20 major prizes, plus one Crayola Classpack for every applicant submitting by the early bird deadline
Application Deadline: June 23 (June 5 for early bird prize)

Sponsor: Toshiba America Foundation
Award: Two categories: Up to $5,000 and more than $5,000
Number of Awards: Not specified
Application Deadline: Up to $5,000 awarded on a rolling basis; Aug. 1 deadline for applications for more than $5,000

Deadline: Ongoing
Award: No more than 10 percent of an organization's annual operating expenses or 25 percent of the total budget for the project being funded; awards have ranged from the hundreds to the millions of dollars.
Number of Awards: Varies
Qualification: Project should "directly serve or impact children living in urban poverty, particularly in the areas of education, family economic stability (including microfinance) and childhood health."

Professional Resources

Each year, U.S. educators spend more than $1.5 billion out of pocket on technology, supplies and gear for their classroooms. K-12 Grant Alert helps connect educators with the resources they need to get the educational tools for their classrooms, from large-scale state and federal programs to corporate grants, competitions and sweepstakes specifically for K-12 schools. K-12 Grant Alert is published monthly.

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